1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a system for centralized management of medical data for bio-body information detected from individual patients, etc. More specifically, it relates to a system which is connected by way of a telephone line to a data processing facility in a hospital or like other medical organization for the centralized management of respective medical data detected from individual patients at home, and adapted to automatically send out required medical data to the telephone line.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A system for centralized management of medical data of individual in-patients is known in which various types of sensors are attached to each of a number of patients for measuring bio-body information, e.g., electrocardiogram, body temperature, blood pressure, etc. and the medical data detected from the patient are displayed on monitors placed in a central monitoring room for the monitor or diagnosis of disease.
However, such a type of medical service or nursery can be provided only for in-patients and patients who are at home. If such a patient feels an abnormality, they have to call on clinics, hospitals, etc. for ambulatory treatment or contact doctors for sick-visiting.
For overcoming the foregoing problems, there has been proposed, for example, a system in which a medical sensor such as an electrocardiography is attached to a patient who is at home (hereinafter referred to as an "at-home patient") and abnormal sensor signals, if detected, are automatically informed to a home doctor, etc. by utilizing a telephone circuit (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Sho 60-26126).
This prior system comprises a bio-body data measuring section including an electrocadiograph, etc, a section for recognizing the result of the measurement as to if it is normal or abnormal, a section for judging whether the abnormality is transient or persistent and a control section for driving a telephone set automatically by the signals from the detection section.
In such a system, when abnormal detection signals are detected continuously from a patient, the telephone set is driven to connect with that of a medical organization by way of a telephone line to automatically communicate the abnormal state of the patient.
However, the proposed system functions merely as an abnormality detection device and can not be utilized for sampling and using basic ordinary data of a patient which are useful to his diagnosis, etc. Referring also to the abnormality detection per se, it merely informs of various abnormal data, not selectively, and sends out miscellaneous information having no substantial abnormality together, making it difficult for effective and smooth administration of the system in practical use.
Further, since the patient is cable-connected with the telephone set by way of the measuring section, abnormality recognizing section, control section, etc., his physical movements are greatly restricted. Disconnection or like other failures may tend to occur due to lengthy connection cables, etc.
The object of the present invention is to provide a system for centralized management of medical data capable of continuously accumulating ordinary basic medical data of a patient, sending the accumulated data periodically or at a predetermined time interval by way of a telephone line to a clinic, hospital or like other medical organization, as well as rapidly informing of abnormal medical data, if detected from the patient, thereby providing an overall effect as the medical aid system for at-home patients etc.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system for centralized management of medical data capable of surely judging, among various abnormal data, only those data that are substantially abnormal in the sense requiring urgent information to the medical facility regarding a patient pertinent to the system and selectively sending out such data by way of a telephone line to a hospital, etc.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a system for the management of personal medical data which can set a patient free from the restriction to the system as much as possible.
The foregoing object of the present invention can be attained according to this invention by a system for centralized management of medical data regarding bio-body information detected from a patient by way of a telephone line to the data processing facility in a hospital, clinic or like other medical organization, wherein the system comprises:
a transmission section having a plurality of sensors for detecting various bio-body data from a patient and
a receiving section which is adapted to receive the signals of the bio-body data sent out from the transmission section and which is connected with an external telephone line through an input/output interface, in which
at least one of the transmission sections and the receiving section has memory means for storing the medical data of various detected bio-body data for a predetermined period of time, and memory means for previously storing those values showing standard ranges regarding the respective bio-body information for comparison with detected values, and a judging section for comparing the respective bio-body information detected by the respective sensors with the values of the standard ranges previously stored in the memory means, and the receiving section has:
a control section adapted to read out and send the medical data accumulated in the memory means periodically or at a predetermined time interval to the telephone line, and send out the medical data the values of which are out of the standard ranges and judged to be abnormal by the judging section to the telephone line, in which the medical data are sent to the telephone line under the control of the system or upon access from the data processing facility in a medical organization, etc.
Another object of the present invention can be attained according to this invention by a system for centralized management of medical data regarding bio-body information detected from a patient by way of a telephone line to the data processing facility in a hospital, clinic or like other medical organization, wherein the system comprises:
a transmission section having a plurality of sensors for detecting the bio-body information from a patient and PA1 a receiving section which is adapted to receive the signals of the bio-body data sent out from the transmission section and which is connected with an external telephone line through an input/output interface, in which PA1 at least one of the transmission section and the receiving section has first memory means for storing the medical data of detected various bio-body data for a predetermined period of time and second memory means for previously storing those values showing general standard ranges and personal standard ranges of a patient pertinent to the system regarding respective bio-body information, as well as a first judging, section for comparing the respective bio-body data detected by the respective sensors with the values of the general standard ranges previously stored in the second memory means and a second judging section for comparing the respective bio-body information detected by the respective sensors with the values of personal standard ranges stored in the second memory means, and the receiving section has: PA1 a control section adapted to read out and send the medical data accumulated in the first memory means periodically or at a predetermined time interval to the telephone line, and send out the medical data the values of which are out of the standard ranges and judged to be abnormal by the judging section to the telephone line, in which the medical data are sent to the telephone line under the control of the system or upon access from the side of the data processing facility in the medical organization, etc.
In the system according to the present invention, various bio-body informations of a particular patient are detected by a plurality of sensors attached to the patient such as electrocardiograph, sphygmomanometer, thermometer, etc. The detected bio-body data are continuously stored in the first memory means for a predetermined period of time and read out, when necessary, and sent to a medical organization by way of a telephone line on one hand. The detected bio-body data is compared with standard values previously stored in the second memory means, for example, general standard values and/or values for the personal standard values of a particular patient in the judging section on the other hand and the detected data, if judged to be abnormal, are sent out through the control section to the input/output interface and transmitted to the data processing facility of a medical organization by way of the telephone line.
The clinic or hospital (hereinafter sometime referred to collectively as a medical center) can properly recognize the daily state of a patient by the transmission of ordinary personal data stored continuously and also can rapidly cope with the patient's abnormal state by the abnormal data occassionally sent to the medical center. In the case of the abnormality information, since only those abnormality data requiring urgent treatment are selectively sent out by the comparison with standard values previously stored, frequent and wasteful operation of the system can be avoided, which would otherwise be caused, e.g., by trivial slight abnormalities, failure of sensors, etc. and would increase the burden on the side of the data processing facility.
In an embodiment where the wireless transmission system is employed between the transmission section and the receiving section, since only the transmission section is attached to the body of a patient, and the patient is physically isolated from the telephone set, his movement is set free from the connection with the telephone set, as well as there is less worry for the detachment or disconnection failure for connection cables, etc.